The essentials of our action in 2019

MOVING FORWARD

Increasing priority given to farmers

In 2019, we granted 20,000 loans to small agricultural businesses. The repayment terms are adapted to the seasonal nature of their production and sales.

Our agricultural technical advisers ran 117 field schools for around 2,000 farmers to train them  on low-cost techniques that respect the environment. For example, they learnt how to make natural pesticides, how to set up a nursery on stilts, how to create a compost heap and how to irrigate their plot.

A package of 30 modules on agricultural techniques has been created and used to train advisers from rural agencies, who can then go on to deliver the training to beneficiaries.

Producers are very happy with this complete support package, which we will offer in each rural agency, from 2020.

MFIs* moving towards independence, and new ones being created

In Myanmar, Sont Oo Tehtwin, which was set up in 2014, supports more than 10,000 micro-entrepreneurs and reached financial stability in 2019. The team of 60 staff is becoming increasingly autonomous and is now led by a Burmese director. Despite a very tense socio-political situation in Burkina Faso and in Haiti, Yikri and Palmis Mikwofinans Sosyal are proving very resilient and continuing to pursue their growth plans, and are moving towards financial autonomy. As for Munafa in Sierra Leone, a newcomer created at the start of 2019, it is already supporting 1,775 micro-entrepreneurs.

Finally, two prospecting assignments have visited Côte d’Ivoire to prepare for the opening of an MFI in 2020.

*MFI : social microfinance institution

CHALLENGES

In Guinea, Wakili’s team needs to improve its skills and has also had to deal with a turbulent election year that caused strikes and violence in the districts where it operates. These internal and external issues have created delays in loan repayments and resulted in a lack of rigour in following operational procedures. It is being well supported by Entrepreneurs du Monde’s technical advisers and its board of directors.

In the Philippines, our withdrawal that had been planned for the end of 2020 has been accelerated by the problems in agreeing a common vision with the managers and administrators of the two programmes for how to reach the most disadvantaged families. We will however continue to provide support for specific requests.

MOVING FORWARD

The year 2019 was one of strengthening and consolidation. We raised the level of the teams’ skills and worked with them on the consolidation of the procedures, tools and content of the training and support they provide. The 4 programmes will from now on have a clear and recognised position and set of skills within their local ecosystem, allowing them to set up partnerships with local organisations, undertake new projects and expand geographically.

DIFFICULTIES

The participation of women in setting up or developing businesses remains problematic. Furthermore, the young entrepreneurs whom we support are still encountering difficulties in obtaining financial services.

The job market remains restricted, too often obliging us to steer project managers towards internships and fixed-term contracts.

We have already identified solutions for 2020.

INNOVATION

In response to the weak level of education and technical and professional training, we decided to devise and create, in West Africa, a model of “company school”. This is a business with a standard commercial strategy and a threefold social mission:

• to recruit, train and give long-term support to apprentices (young people and women)
• to work in partnership with existing local businesses
• to stimulate the economic structure by strengthening apprentices’ employability on the one hand, and supporting the creation and development of VSBs on the other.

In 2019 we finalised the model and prepared to open 3 company-schools in 2020:

• in Senegal for processed fruit products;
• in Burkina Faso for personal care services;
• in Togo, for waste disposal management (see insert)

AGRICULTURAL TRAINING AND LOANS

We have opened up agencies in rural areas and recruited an agronomist and a number of agricultural technicians to provide our social microfinance teams with the resources they need to support farmers and develop agricultural training courses and loans which can be repaid after the harvest.

ENTIRE SECTORS

We have also embarked on an innovative, comprehensive and sustainable sector-by-sector approach for supporting small producers, initially in the Matam region of Senegal. We began at the heart of the sector: storage facilities for agricultural products, starting with a model facility which we erected and tested in collaboration with CRAterre*.

In March 2019, we built a first storage facility which enabled us to test the model: 35 tonnes of onions were stored for 4 months and then successfully sold at a very pleasing profit because they were traded in larger quantities and at the right time. At the end of this first campaign, we worked with small producers to set fair storage prices going forward, thereby specifying the assumptions of our business plan.

In November, construction began on our second storage facility in the village of Woudourou – 35 km from Matam – including improvements made following the pilot project. This new facility has a storage capacity of 100 tonnes!

The aim is now to build another 30 of them along the Senegal River over a period of 4 years.

We are now also looking at the possibility of storing cereals, at the end of the onion storage season, so they can then be sold, at cost price, to the poorest and most at-risk families during the lean season.

DIFFICULTIES

The main problem is the temperature: in the hot season (March to July), a particularly busy agricultural period, the mercury regularly hits 48° in the shade, which makes the work extremely difficult. The men and women who work in construction also have an extremely hard time during this period.

We built a first storage facility which enabled us to test the model: 35 tonnes of onions were stored for 4 months and then successfully sold at a very pleasing profit.

NEW IMPACT

Since 2010, we have focused on domestic cooking and lighting needs, and developed a range of products that rapidly improves families’ living conditions since they benefit from powerful, reliable and clean lighting sources and stoves that emit less toxic fumes, are faster and use less wood.

In 2019, we decided to develop our range of products to meet the needs of entrepreneurs regarding productive equipment that is compatible with solar energy. We began selecting solar pumps, grain mills and solar egg incubators for farmers, SHS kits, large refrigerators and stoves for transformers and restaurant owners, etc.

TWO BUSINESS MODELS

We first designed and deployed a micro-franchise model that allows “to the last mile” distribution to a large number of beneficiaries and support for the economic activity of resellers.

But making this model sustainable remains a challenge: on the one hand, the margins generated must allow the structure to be sustainable while providing sufficiently attractive revenues to the micro-franchised resellers, and on the other hand, we want to keep prices affordable for vulnerable populations.

Therefore, the sustainability of our social enterprises requires an additional source of income, and we have decided to enhance the impact of these projects through carbon financing mechanisms.

We first promoted this approach in Haiti, where we are already in the process of scaling up to add value to carbon emission reductions. In 2019, we began the process of registering our Togolese program with the Gold Standard. And we are pursuing our partnership with L’Oréal in Burkina Faso which enables their shea butter producers to reduce their wood consumption and L’Oréal to reduce its carbon impact.

More recently, we have developed a second model: solar electric micro-grids which consists of taking villages that are completely excluded from national electricity grids and connecting them to a grid, while charging households for the service of accessing energy.

DIFFICULTES

In 2019, the situation concerning security deteriorated sharply in two countries where we operate and slowed our development.

In Haiti, the collapse of the national currency triggered a sharp increase in the prices of basic necessities and extreme violence by armed gangs. This context has hampered the movements of the Palmis Eneji team and its sales. Fortunately, an upturn at the end of the year gave the team renewed hope of getting back on the path to growth and self-sufficiency.

In Burkina Faso, terrorist attacks multiplied and triggered a state of emergency that limited our movements and operating conditions. Nevertheless, the Nafa Naana team demonstrated reactivity and was able to pursue its activities despite these new constraints.